FlipShareTV
Latest
Switched On: Flip-flops
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. This week's announcement that Cisco is shuttering its Flip Video business was but the latest twist in the history of the market share-leading device. The Flip got its start after its creator, Pure Digital, modified its original disposable camcorder to be reusable after hackers showed it could be done. And its success continued to defy convention that the product would resonate against a slew of digital cameras and increasingly competent smartphones that could shoot competitive -- and even high definition -- video. The Flip also soared above the market share of companies with far stronger brands such as Sony and Kodak, although the latter made gains on a string of hits, including the 1080p-shooting Zi8 and waterproof PlaySport. It even fought back an initial foray from Apple's iPod nano and was still holding its own after the debut of the latest iPod touch, which took the HD video capture feature from the iPhone and made it available without a contract. Yes, the Flip hung tough. That's why its cancellation says volumes about Cisco, the company that acquired it for some $590 million in stock. Cisco needed to show growth with a consumer product line that could not be easily augmented with acquisitions and that derived little connection with the mother brand -- even less than Linksys, the company's networking line. Cisco certainly tried. But the Flip group made a few false moves that stuck out like a pop-out USB connector, and with little of that spring-loaded joy.
Switched On: The camcorder strikes back
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. As it often does at its product introductions, Apple took a subtle swipe at the Flip camcorder when it introduced the video camera-equipped iPod nano this fall. The sales volumes of the iPod nano even caused some to proclaim Apple's revision of the most popular iPod to be a Flip-killer. The inexpensive Flip camcorder has long proven tenacious, however, fending off competition from major brands such as Sony and Kodak, as well as value players like Aiptek and DXG -- not to mention nearly every digital camera and cellphone that can shoot video. Besides, the iPod nano has outsold the Flip camcorder many times over; why would Apple care about such incremental competition? One answer is that the developers of the Flip camcorder (now the Pure Digital division of Cisco) aren't just hawking a cheap digital geegaw. Even before Pure Digital sold its first "disposable" camcorder, the company understood ecosystems. Back then, that involved installing processing equipment at retailers such as CVS, as the company's business model relied on getting consumers to develop prints and create DVDs in stores. Since those days, the utilitarian application it originally shipped for transferring videos to PCs has given way to FlipShare , which is clearly designed to be the equivalent of iTunes for video. And more recently, it introduced Flipshare.com to provide its own spin on organizing and sharing videos online, including to devices beyond the PC.
FlipShare TV review
Do you love funky proprietary software enough to force your loved ones to run it too? That's the question Cisco seems to be asking with the FlipShare TV, a new set-top box designed to help make sharing Flip videos super-simple for even the most basic user. Unfortunately, some puzzling design choices and big limitations combined with the less-than-wonderful FlipShare software make this seem like more of a hassle than it's worth. What do we mean? Read on for the full review. %Gallery-80029%
Flip Video FlipShare TV beams video to the big screen
We first saw the Cisco FlipShare TV hit the FCC just over a month ago, and now that's it's official (well, official in the sense that Walt Mossberg broke the embargo by two hours) we're still sort of underwhelmed and a little befuddled -- although it's made by Cisco, the Flip-focused media player doesn't actually connect to your home WiFi network. Instead, the FlipShare software transmits data from your computer using a proprietary USB dongle, which means the player itself is useless unless your computer is on with Flip's funky FlipShare software running and the dongle connected. Flip tells us the decision to go proprietary was made to make things easier for non-technical users to set up (like Flip's cameras, the FlipShare software is preloaded on the dongle) but we can't help but think it's actually a bit more complicated, since Gran won't be able to just turn the thing on and subscribe to your new Flip user channels enabled by FlipShare 5.0. Instead, she'll have to get out her laptop, plug in the dongle, launch the software (which pulls the content from the internet), and then start using the FlipShare TV's RF remote to get at your videos, which seems pretty complicated to us. Yeah, we're just not sure, especially at $149 -- we've actually got one here for review, we'll let you know how we feel in the next couple days.
Cisco FlipShareTV streamer outed in FCC documents
Flip Video remote, meet your family. One of Cisco's latest FCC filings happened to keep its user manual outside the seal of confidentiality, giving us a pretty good look at FlipShareTV, a setup for streaming recorded video from the computer's FlipShare software, out the USB dongle transmitted wirelessly to the receiver connected to the TV... and that's about it. Nothing too thrilling here, and there's no indication of price or release date. More pictures below -- any Flip enthusiasts actually excited by this? %Gallery-76850% [Via Zatz Not Funny]
